Rachel Reeves has made a fanfare at the International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington about her 'bold' plans to help cut energy costs for business. It scarcely needs saying these are too little, too late.

UK industry had the highest energy costs of any comparable economy before the Iran war – and we are not talking about a little, but a lot. 

The most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics for electricity show an industrial user price in 2023 of 25.85p per kilowatt hour in the UK. In the US, it was just under 6.5p. France and Germany hover around the International Energy Association median, a touch below 18p.

In Norway, our fellow North Sea oil and gas nation, the figure was 6.64p.

As an aside, the Norwegians also had the good sense to set up a sovereign wealth fund in the 1990s for their oil wealth. It was worth around £1.55trillion at the end of last year, or £282,000 for every citizen, and made a profit of more than £170 billion that would have come in handy.

Our gas prices are broadly in line with the EU medians but a lot higher than in the US. The UK's reliance on liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports leaves us vulnerable to price volatility and supply issues.

This, then, is the context for Ed Miliband's green posturing and the Chancellor's so far ineffectual efforts to help manufacturers.

She extended a scheme to cut electricity bills for intensive energy users by up to 20 per cent by removing green levies.

Problem is, it will still only help 10,000 of the UK's manufacturing firms, and backdated payments won't start until 2027, by which time some will have gone bust. 

A separate measure to scrap a carbon tax on power stations will not take effect until 2028. Some are on the brink now, negotiating new energy contracts at much higher prices at the same time as they face increases in rents, business rates and employment costs.

US President Donald Trump urges the UK to 'drill, baby, drill' in the North Sea, but Energy Secretary Ed Miliband appears wedded to virtue-signalling as custodian of Labour's climate credentials.

Decisions on the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields, previously approved but then stymied by the courts, are in limbo.

Rosebank, the biggest, could alone create £8.5billion of investment, boost the wider economy by £25billion and create 2,000 jobs at the peak, according to its developers Shell and Norwegian oil giant Equinor.

No one is saying this is easy. The Chancellor has very limited headroom and lots of hungry mouths clamouring for help.

But high energy costs have played a big part in the near-destruction of our steel industry. They are chasing away overseas investors, as we saw when OpenAI shelved plans for a major facility due to high energy costs.

Energy policy has not been taken seriously enough by this government or by its predecessors, who took the view we could just keep on importing cheap gas.

We have been far too slow to renew our ageing nuclear fleet. No other country would have taken so long to approve domestic champion Rolls-Royce, to develop small modular reactors.

The Rough storage field, shut under the Tories then reopened, remains in abeyance under Labour.

For decades, governments have squandered our natural bounty, succumbed to climate change mania and failed to recognise the strategic importance of supply.

The Ukraine and Iran wars show the urgent need for change. What more will it take?